


The Wilderness

by greygerbil



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8293429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Frederick has agreed to go on a camping trip with Will and now feels like he is suffering for his own imprudent decision. Perhaps not everything about nature is quite that bad, though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr; the person wanted Will dragging Frederick out into nature. Thanks again for the idea!

Frederick’s first camping trip with his partner ended almost right at the car – or, at least, what Will would describe as right at the car, since Frederick thought a one hour walk straight into the wooden wilderness of Virginia was not at all the same thing as being at least on the margin of human society on a parking lot. They were just following a small trail where each step had him sinking inches into the muddy ground, pressing dampness into his new hiking boots which, while fashionable, did not prove to be entirely functional. Frederick was looking up into a thick roof of leaves, trying to find beauty in the way the sun stabbed in golden beams through the greenery (instead of contemplating how uninviting and gloomy the perpetual shadow the rest of the forest was in was). As he did so, his foot slipped on a flat stone and he fell forward into the mud.

“I think we have to turn around,” he told Will, as he pulled him up by his elbow.

“It’s just a bit of earth.” Will brushed off some of the bigger globs of wet dirt which clung to Frederick’s jacket. “Come on, no one’s going to see you here, Frederick, and I don’t care.”

Thus, the mud failed to save him from further advances into the wild.

-

The first stop after a much too long way was, of course, at a broad, shallow stream for Will to indulge in the hobby that even bait made from human bits found in his own house had not been able to ruin for him. Frederick tried to get comfortable as he sat next to Will, the dead cold of the uneven stone ground seeping into him through the fabric of his clothes.

“If you shift so much, you’ll chase the fish away by moving your hook,” Will said.

“Thank God we are not actually reliant on eating wild animals of questionable origin.”

“The fish you can buy at the supermarket is way more questionable,” Will argued. “The closest you get to knowing where it’s from is usually just the country on the label.”

“One of the advantages of modernity is that I do not _have_ to know. I can still buy the fish and sue the company that sells it if I get food poisoning – the basic principles of the division of labour.”

Besides, he rarely ever ate fish, now that he had been forced to turn vegetarian.

“Forget your principles for today. Modernity makes things too difficult.”

“You have an interesting definition of ‘easy’, then,” Frederick muttered as he tightened his freezing fingers around the fishing rod, cursing the promise he had made Will that, for this weekend, he would give everything Will wanted to do a try. If at least he could have scooted closer to Will to siphon some of his warmth, he could have pretended to feel something akin to romance as he froze at the side of this river, but Will had decided they had to sit some feet apart so the stream did not entangle their fishing lines.

Frederick had just given himself to the interminable boredom of fishing, internally comparing it to his restlessness on the golf course and contemplating how each class of people seemed to have their own ways to waste a lot time that they decreed as relaxation, when something creaked overhead. Moments later, a big branch hit the river right in front of him, splashing Frederick liberally with water on impact before the stream took hold of it and hurried it along.

“We’re lucky that didn’t hit us,” Will said with a frown at the branches above.

Frederick wiped a hand through his eyes to remove the sandy river water, reset his coloured lens, tried to forget that the water had probably washed the make-up from his bullet scar and sighed. He did not think being knocked out sounded like the worst idea right now.

-

After leaving the stream behind, their way went steeply upwards for a while. Will was walking before him, swinging from one hand the cooling container in which he kept the two fish he had caught (Frederick had had nothing to contribute to their haul).

There were only a few trees on the sides of the rocky dirt track, leaving them the view on other, neighbouring hills. Will stopped Frederick with a gesture and directed his gaze over the dark tree-tops.

“Here, you can see where we came from,” he said, indicating the glittering band of the river winding between the trees. Frederick stood still for a moment, considering the image. He could not completely deny that there was a certain tranquillity to it, though as the wind tore at his wet, dirty clothes, Frederick felt homesick for his cosy jaguar with the seat heater, which stood abandoned on the camping site parking lot.

Next to him, Will presented a much better picture than Frederick suspected he himself did at that moment. His dark curls looked merely tousled by the breeze, his cheeks had a healthy hue of pink and there was a rare smile on his face.

Frederick took a step back to give himself a better view on the sight he was much more interested in than a middlingly beautiful eastern American landscape. However, his heel caught a root and he stumbled. Waving his arms in panic, half-turning, he twisted his foot in the process of trying and failing to stay upright. When he caught himself, it was with his flat hands on the hard ground, feeling the tiny spikes of pebbles digging into the meat of his palms.

For the second time that day, Will put Frederick back on his feet.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“I think I sprained my ankle,” Frederick answered, and he did not quite know against whom the accusing tone in his voice was even directed; mostly, it was nature herself, who did not seem to like Frederick too much.

“Walk it off for a while,” Will said with a shrug, “if it’s a real problem, we’ll notice.”

“In that case, should we really remove ourselves even further from civilisation?”

Perhaps it was just a small injury, but the nature boy attitude of soldiering on had never appealed to him. He would rather be pitied a little, but Will took his hand and pulled him along the way instead.

“We’re in Virginia, Frederick, not the Amazonian jungle, and you’ve gone to medical school. Besides, we probably have reception out here. Even if we don’t, I’ll just walk back and get help.”

“And leave me alone?”

“I think even you could shoo off the racoons that might try to eat you,” Will said, shaking his head with a mocking smile.

-

Considering his bad luck with the beaten path so far, Frederick probably did not protest as much as common sense later told him he should have when Will led them straight into the underbrush. His foot still hurt, but it was sadly not swollen or painful enough to warrant an immediate stop and return. Instead, Frederick was left slapping low-hanging branches out the way while brambles held on to his clothes and, when they could get a hold of it (which was too often), his skin.

“I barely dare to ask, but do you have any idea where we are headed, Will?”

“I saw a clearing at the river bank from up on the hill. We should make camp there.”

“I am happy to hear we did not just go on a wild chase for nothing but the thrill of getting lost.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

Will very much seemed to enjoy the silent outrage on Frederick’s face.

“Come, it’s not far now.”

As he said so, Will gracefully threw his leg over a fallen tree and jumped over. Frederick tried to follow his example. However, on the moss-covered trunk, his fingers slipped, leaving him straddling the wood for a moment before he clambered over, pulling his hand out of a bunch of stinging nettles.

He really hoped Will was right.

-

“Did your dad never show you how to do these things?”

“No, my father was too busy working so I could get an education which would keep me _out_ of situations where I had to make fire for myself instead of using a heater and an oven.”

Will kept methodically arranging twigs in the small circle of stones he had built, feeding the flames.

“I liked learning these things from my dad. Repairing boats, roasting meat out in the wilderness…”

The way Will spoke did force Frederick to soften his answer a little, lest he feel bad for tainting some of the nice memories left to Will. There were not so many to choose from, not within the last five years, at least.

“My father was really not the type to enjoy the great outdoors, or, for that matter, alone time with his children.”

“If I take you along often enough, you’re bound to learn something.”

“If this is all just some elaborate way to make me call you ‘daddy’, I promise, you can present your psychosexual oddities to me without forcing me through a forest trek. I am not an unreasonable man, I can compromise,” Frederick joked, stretching out his legs in the grass.

“Do you think your lack of a caring father figure is the reason you get so uncomfortable when you experience intimate moments with your partner that you have to deflect them with humour?”

Seeing Frederick’s baffled expression, Will smiled.

“I can also psychoanalyse everything you do. I’ve taught at university level. Now, will you help me gut the fish?”

“No – speaking of misapplying memories from the past onto non-equivalent situations in the future, I feel like I would be a bit too sympathetic with the fish,” Frederick said, sullen that Will had matched him at his own game.

“Okay,” Will said, “then keep the fire going.”

Frederick didn’t know whether Will really had moved out of his line of sight for the purpose of sparing him the image or just because he better caught the last light of the sinking sun at the spot where he had gone to, but it was nice to imagine it had been for him. He knelt by the fire and haphazardly kept putting sticks on the flames, squinting into the ashes. One of the stones had rolled out of the ring and into the fire. Frederick grabbed its cool end and pulled it backwards.

A stack of smouldering branches and twigs cascaded onto his hand as he removed their load-bearing foothold.

“I might have underrated the importance of paternal guidance,” Frederick muttered as, under Will’s surprised gaze, he hurried towards the river and cooled his fingers in the stream.

-

“I’ve a feeling you’re not an outdoor enthusiast yet.”

The tent was pitched behind them and Frederick was eating the last bites of a fish that tasted deliciously like smoke. Though right after his defence of store-bought fish he probably would not admit it, Will’s fresh catches always tasted better than even restaurant food. The few times that he allowed himself to cheat his diet, it was usually for what Will had brought home from the river.

“Walking your dogs is enough outdoors for me,” he said. “As you see, nature does not take kindly to me.”

Aside from a red, slightly swollen ankle, he had scratches, welts from the nettles and reddish burn marks from the fire to show for his troubles.

“I think I will stay home. The next time, you might actually manage to set me on fire.”

“You did that all on your own, Frederick.”

“It was you by proxy, considering you made me come here,” Frederick insisted.

“Guilt-tripping? Isn’t that beneath you, Doctor Chilton?”

“Of course not. Never eschew an effective weapon.”

Will chuckled. “I guess I should apologise.”

When Will dragged Frederick down into the cool grass, he thought just briefly about the cold he would probably get from undressing in this weather, but the thought dispersed like a handful of the colourful leaves on the ground would in a gust of wind. When his breath started going faster, he noticed the scents of wet earth and damp wood burning even more; and as Will sank into him, he looked up at a sky that was a perfect velvet blue with stars like little crystals pinned on it.

Maybe, he considered reluctantly, camping was not quite so awful after all. He would not admit that thought to Will, but he suspected he could read it from the smile on his face.


End file.
